LCPL Molina, Daniel
By Elbert Hubbard
“A Message To Garcia”
America is currently in war with Spain and the president needs to send a vital message to general Garcia, but he is currently in the mountains of Cuba nowhere to be found. That's where Rowan comes in, he is tasked to deliver this message and he does so making it his sole goal in life. Garcia starts off as a person but it's more than that; Garcia is a idea. Then we have Rowan which is the person you should strive to be for. When a task needs to be done the task itself is “Garcia” while the individual performing the task is Rowan. There is a few subtle but important leadership messages that are hidden within the volume. In the book it is said “civilianization is a long search for people like Rowan”. Rowan in theory is the perfect worker, he or she is the individual that puts their current job in front of everything else. Rowan is the person that's willing to take the initiative willing to work without without supervise and willing to work on their off time. He was such an extraordinary person that Garcia is no longer a person anymore but an idea, meaning when given a task a “Garcia” per se would not let any obstacle stop the individual, you're supposed to do the task head on full determination until the task is complete. Ultimately the author believes that more people should strive to be Rowan and possibly use him as a role model of sorts. The hidden leadership lesson as I said earlier, is to have confidence in your subordinates and trust that they are able to do the job given; the president gave Rowan a mission he did not tell him how to do it nor did he put his opinion into the matter, the president trust was so great he gave him the mission and knew that he would accomplish it in his own way. So here we have Rowan which is ideally the perfect worker which people should strive to be and we have Gracia which is ultimately is your goal to achieve. Then the volume teaches that we need to...